


The Stanford Story

by letmegeekatyou



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Trans, F/F, Female Dean Winchester, Female Sam Winchester, First Kiss, First Time, Poetry, Romance, Stanford Era, Trans Sam Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-26
Updated: 2014-02-27
Packaged: 2018-01-13 20:17:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,754
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1239448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letmegeekatyou/pseuds/letmegeekatyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Samantha had looked forward to college as a chance to really be herself, but she's having trouble figuring out exactly what that means.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Katharine Hepburn

Samantha never felt she was quite as good at the girly stuff as her sister. Deanna knew how to seduce her way through a room, all curves and eyelashes and innuendo, and Sam could never quite manage it, even before the growth spurt that made her tower over everyone at school. She wasn't awkward—she knew how to fight, could run fast, knew how to handle her body. And she _liked_ her body. But she also knew it wasn't the kind of body a girl was _supposed_ to have (as John had reminded her over and over again). Sam had other gifts—a warm, easy smile, a genuine interest in other people, and a kind of humble intelligence that made her a favorite of her teachers without intimidating her peers. But she still felt she was somehow coming up short.

College, though, was something new and a little terrifying and full of possibility. Away from her father’s disapproval, she felt freer to wear the makeup and cute clothes that women were supposed to wear. And she didn't have to turn down dates because she was going to be busy laying vengeful spirits to rest on Friday night. It was a whole new start.

She did make friends—in her classes, mostly, but her roommate took her to a few parties and she soon had plenty of people she could call when she wanted to go out. She joined a group that went to the Stanford Theatre for screenings of old classics, which Sam loved. She got good at putting on makeup and figuring out which outfits would flatter her athletic figure, even if she still wasn't sure what that meant. She even went on a few dates with nice girls who liked her height and her strength and the easy way she had of making them laugh.

So why was she finding it all so unsatisfying? She had wanted to leave the old life behind, but she found herself feeling more and more nostalgic for her sister, and the Impala, and the part of her that she was sidelining in order to be a “normal” girl. The part that wanted to go running without doing her makeup first, the part that liked jeans and boots and beer and felt, if not entirely comfortable in her own skin, at least more _authentic_. It felt like there were two Samanthas, and she could only be one at a time. If there was a middle ground, she didn't know where it was, hadn't known enough women to see all the different ways there were to be one.

She spent more and more time focusing on schoolwork. It was something that made her feel like herself, a bridge between the research she’d done as a hunter and her new life. She still went out occasionally, but she let the makeup slide a bit and felt relieved, more often than not, when she decided to skip a party.

She never skipped the movies, though, especially the comedies. There was something bright and optimistic about them that felt like an antidote to the life she’d had so far, even as they reminded her of late nights in motel rooms, watching whatever old Cary Grant movie was on the local public access station. Reminded her of watching _Arsenic and Old Lace_ with Deanna, laughing so hard she almost forgot that Dad had been out longer than he said he would.

One weekend, the Theatre was showing nothing but _The Philadelphia Story_ , which Sam had seen before but loved completely. It was a love story about two people who didn’t work at first, who had to sort themselves out before they could be any good to anybody else, and that felt more real to her than most romantic comedies. And it was about a woman no one seemed to see clearly, who was misread and misunderstood by everyone around her, because she wasn't what they expected a woman to be.

Sam had already seen it once that weekend; she had come with the group the night before, but tonight she was on her own, enjoying the quiet of the dark theater and the feeling of being transported elsewhere, to another time and place where things were, by virtue of being fictional, simpler. The movie had just started, but she was totally wrapped up in it when someone sitting behind her leaned forward, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"Wasn’t Katharine Hepburn something? What an entrance. And look at those pants—you can tell right away she’s a woman who doesn’t care what anyone thinks." Sam turned her face into a cloud of blonde curls and a bright smile, and she couldn’t help smiling back.

"She lived her whole life like that," Sam whispered back, although the theatre was almost empty and there wasn’t really anyone sitting nearby. "She was opinionated, smart, a shrewd businesswoman. People hated her for it."

"If I recall correctly, they also said she had no sex appeal, that she was too much like a man and not enough like a woman."

"Yeah, they did." The curls that had been tickling Sam’s cheek vanished back into the darkness behind her, the hand on her shoulder stroking her hair softly as it fell away. She looked down at her own hands, feeling suddenly very awkward. Hepburn might not have been a typical woman, but at least she was confident enough to own who she was. Sam barely _knew_ who she was.

She felt slightly less awkward when she noticed the blonde woman coming toward her down the row. She was tall and smiling and _beautiful_ , and she giggled as she tripped over every other unoccupied seat.

"Oh, shit. I’m so clumsy. Just started taking yoga, though, so maybe that’ll make me more graceful. And bendier," she added with a wink as she sat down next to Sam. There was an easiness and a warmth in her face that made Sam smile.

"You know," Sam said, "Hepburn was an athlete, too. Tennis, running. Very unladylike, according to her critics."

"Ladylike is highly overrated," the woman answered. "A lady probably wouldn’t do this." She reached over and took one of Sam’s hands in her own, softly caressing it as she looked into her eyes. "I mean, it can be fun, being girly and stuff. But it can be hard enough just being a person without having to worry about being a lady, too."

Sam was at a loss for words. She’s been flirted with plenty, had even learned to flirt back, but there was something different about this woman. She was pretty and feminine, yes, but there was a bit of Katharine Hepburn’s fire in her, too, a sureness that took Sam’s breath away. She felt herself lace her fingers through the stranger’s, suddenly very sure that she didn’t want to let her go.

"I’d like to meet her," Sam heard herself say. "I’d like to know how she did it, got all that confidence."

"I’d like to meet her, too. I would really, really like to make out with her." She raised an eyebrow suggestively, then lifted her face to Sam’s, pausing just a hair’s breadth away from Sam’s lips, waiting, silently asking permission. Sam reached up to push back a stray curl, letting her fingers trace the curve of the woman's ear before cupping her cheek and bringing their lips together.

It was a soft kiss, gentle but lingering. Ordinarily, kissing a beautiful woman in the dark, Sam would feel eager, even rushed, but this time… She could wait. She wanted more, but she felt somehow that they would have time for those hungrier, fiercer kisses. Time for that and a million other things. Time for being ladies and time for being people, for beer and makeup and running and all the other things she wanted to do on her way to becoming who she was supposed to be.

"I’m Sam, by the way."

"Jessica," the woman answered, leaning against Sam’s shoulder as they turned to watch the movie, both smiling brightly in the dark.


	2. Jessica

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So this is falling in love.

Samantha was starting to regret taking creative writing. She had thought it would be fun, an easy credit, but it turned out that poetry was actually really _hard_ to write. It wasn't just putting feelings down on paper, she was learning, not if you wanted someone else to read it and understand--it was about describing the feeling so accurately that someone else, someone who didn't even know you, could read it and _feel_ what you meant.

The latest assignment was the worst--a poem about love. How was she supposed to explain what love meant to her? Love was an open road, hunting, revenge. It was an older sister who stole food for you and never had enough to eat herself. It was a mother you didn't remember and a father who was nothing but disappointed in you, and it was the way you clung to that disappointment because at least it meant he cared. It was loving yourself enough to leave. But how was she supposed to put that in a poem? That kind of love was all hard edges and making do, not the kind people write poetry about.

But there was also Jessica... They had been together for a while now, and although she wasn't quite ready to say it, she was pretty sure she actually was falling in love. Jess was the person Sam wanted to tell good news to, the person she most wanted to see at the end of a long day. When she walked into Jess's dorm room, she felt like she was  _home._

Jessica was the first person she wanted to be completely free with. It hurt that she couldn't tell her the whole truth about her family, but about herself? About her fears and hopes, her faith, her insecurities? Those things she wanted Jess to see. She wanted to hold her hand and walk her through all the things that made up Samantha Winchester, let her look, and touch, and ask questions, and make herself at home among them.

Maybe there was a poem in that. But was that the kind of love that others felt? Was normal love about revealing hidden things, or was that just how love worked for the Winchesters, who were all lonely and full of secrets, like distant stars too far away to be seen from Earth? It certainly felt like love, giving Jessica pieces of herself to hold onto, receiving pieces in return. Some things had been easy. Her fear of clowns came up when they were shopping for Halloween costumes and Sam had to leave the store because one of the _really unnecessarily realistic_ clown mannequin behind the counter. Jessica confessed that she was afraid of heights and quicksand. At Christmas, they talked about angels; Jessica wasn't sure about them, but she liked that Sam believed. They went to church together, where Jess said she'd like to meet the angel Gabriel, the one who was in charge of delivering good news.

Some things were harder to talk about. Sam finally told her about her mom one day in the park, as they lay hand in hand in the grass and watched the clouds, soaking up the sun, talking about the people they hoped were watching over them. She told her everything she knew about Mary, about how she wished she could see her, just once. Jessica, in turn, told her about her younger sister, who had only lived a day when Jess was too young to remember. With each new secret she placed safely in Jess's hands and each new thing she learned about her, Sam had felt more and more free, more and more in love.

Some things she put off telling, but this poetry assignment forced her to think about where this relationship was going, about what she wanted from Jess and what she wanted to give her. If she was going to take a chance on someone, Jessica was the one. So she made up her mind.

***

Sam didn't look at Jessica as she talked, instead focusing on the sheets as she twisted them in her hands. They were sitting on Jess's bed, facing one another, still dressed but with the lights off, as Sam told her about her body, about how she didn't look, under her clothes, like Jessica probably expected her to. She had wanted to say something earlier, but she wasn't sure how to, really. She hadn't been serious enough with any of the girls she'd been with for it to have come up. What she didn't say was how desperately afraid she was that it would mean the end of things, then end of the dream in which they'd been living.

She avoided Jessica's eyes as she talked about how her father had tried to make her be a boy, about how Deanna had stood up for her until John decided to just add it to the list of ways that Sam wasn't the person he wanted her to be. She talked about how much she liked her body, because she didn't feel it was the wrong one, about how she tried to reconcile that with what womanhood was supposed to look like.

"Sometimes it's hard to get people to understand that I'm a woman. I don't always want to wear makeup and dresses, even if I sometimes do, and I don't want to hide myself or feel like I'm playing dress up. I'm a woman, no matter what I'm wearing, but people see me wrong sometimes.

"And people have expectations. I know this isn't what you expected when you started dating me, and I'd understand if you're not okay with..." Sam trailed off, sad and angry and not sure how to finish her thought. Not okay with me? Not okay with trans girls? Not okay with all these revelations, because they're kind of a lot to dump on someone who probably just thought she was going to get lucky tonight?

Jessica hadn't said anything, just let Sam say as much as she needed to, but now she reached for Sam's nervous hands and pulled them into her lap. For a moment, she just held them, stroking Sam's long fingers, lifting one to press a kiss into her palm. Then she smiled up at her.

"I've been thinking about us, Sam. Kind of a lot. Because when I'm not with you? The only thing I'm thinking about is when I get to see you again. And with you, I feel...I wish I knew how to describe it, because it's an incredible feeling, like I'm flying but totally safe, like falling is impossible.

"Sam? Hey, Sam, take a breath, sweetie. Don't pass out while I'm trying to say I love you. You'll ruin the mood." Jessica's laughter was like sunlight, and Sam clung to her hands as she let herself start breathing again.

"That's just... not what I was expecting," she managed to say, and now she was smiling back, relaxing her grip. "Hey, come here." She reached out an arm, still tentative, and Jess turned to climb into her lap. Sam wrapped her arms around her, eyes closed, willing her heart to slow down. "I love you, too," she whispered, pressing a kiss into her hair.

They talked for a long time that night, about all sorts of things. What they wanted and needed, their experiences and hopes, their boundaries and fears. Every word was accompanied by gentle caresses, and they gradually shed their clothes and began to learn each other's bodies, asking permission, touching and kissing, holding and being held until finally the words fell away and they were all skin and muscle, all heat and desire, laughing and clinging and gasping for air.

***

Later, when she woke up in Jessica's bed, their long limbs all tangled together and Jessica's steady hand over her heart, Sam knew how to write her poem.

With you, I am a sun,  
suspended in a clear sky,  
flying. I am untouchable;  
there is no gravity.

With you, I am the earth laid out  
under that clear sky,  
and you are the sun on my skin,  
and you are the light in my eyes.

With you, I hang between the sun and earth,  
flying and falling all at once,  
exposed like a nerve  
but safe, always, you keep me safe  
and flying.

With you, there is no gravity.  
  
Without you, I crash  
and burn.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm cis, and this is my first attempt at writing a trans character, so feedback is very welcome.
> 
> Originally posted at http://sammysalive.tumblr.com/post/77420691491/the-stanford-story


End file.
